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Originally posted by eric1000People in certain positions within the company need to be gamers, not all of the employees. Anyone who actively makes decisions concerning the games direction or development needs to be a gamer with a good understanding of both the game and the target audience. The company also needs people who are experts in other fields if they are to be successful. It's a nice ideal that everyone should know the game inside out but I would rather have people that actually know what they are doing in the job for which they are employed.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that everyone in the company needs to be a diehard player of the game they are creating, although if your own employees are not playing your game that might prove a warning sign in certain cases.

"And wikipedia is as accurate as Britannica. Wikipedia is very reliable. You would be hard pressed to find a more reliable source for these kinds of things." -fivoroth

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It really depends on the role the person plays in the company. This holds true accross industries, btw, it isn't restricted to gaming. Certain positions really require an indepth and fundemantal understanding of using the product and what it's like to be a customer of that product, others really don't. It's also possible, though really difficult, to be a in a management position where you don't really use the product....but in that case you really have to be able to trust the judgement of individuals who do when making decisions. Lets use a hypothetical Surfboard Manufacturer company as an example....

- The person who designs the surfboards had better be a surfer and have an in depth understanding of their needs and wants and how they actualy use the boards, as well as the details of what the boards actual do.

- Ditto for the Sales Rep who sells the boards and the Customer Service Rep who interacts with Customers.

- The Accountant who keeps the books straight never needs to have been near the ocean in his life. He just needs to know accounting.

- For the CEO, it really, really HELPS if he's a surfer and understands it well. However a non-surfer CAN function in that job, IF he learns to trust the advice of those who are surfers in matters pertinant to that subject matter. For example, if the designer comes to him and says "If we cut this piece out of the board to save on manufacturing costs, it'll make it virtualy unusable." He needs to trust that expert judgement. On the other hand, if he's going out to try to find the best deal on capital investment...he really doesn't need to as the surfers anything about that to get it done. It's all about knowing your own limitations and knowing who to trust and how to delegate responsibility to subject matter experts.

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I have to agree wholeheartedly with Smedley, if you dont game yourself, how can you design for gamers? Yes you can go off "stats" but thats not going to give you the full picture, gamers know what works and what doesnt for you, its hard for a non gamer to even understand the culture, I've tried educating some :P

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Executives took over the gaming industry years ago. That’s what they do in every field of business they enter into. You start with a few and then you have tons of them. You can see this process in the UK in everything from the BBC to the NHS. Old time actors and doctors look around media centres and hospitals and wonder why their organisation needs so many suits now.

That organisation may not now have the quality of output it used to, but it is now keeping a lot of executives in employment. :)

The whole focus of executives on the business approach is meant to make sure the organisation is a success. This can work well, in the gaming industry, like any new industry, lack of business know how caused a lot of gaming companies to waste fortunes on games that never made it.

But once you let the executives, not the innovators and pioneers run the company, what do you think is going to happen? The company just releases safe bets, giving them what they liked before, designing to a template.

The CEO of EA was a VP at Häagen-Daz and some cleaning company. These are the guys who are calling the shots on your next MMO. God help us.

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lame argument. a programmer is hired for his skills and expertise in coding. i cringe everytime i see a bug list of a game that goes unfixed for months and developers continues to dump garbagage code on top of it. only silly people like you think a gamer would somehow write better code.

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I am sure the author eats a bag of sugar before each article.....

The best designers are not always gamers and vice- versa. Knowledge know how and in depth knowledge always works. But some people who are gamers made it in this industry , when there was no competition and money could be easily made.

Second time round they proved they were clueless about , how to run a business and develop a game.

The Authors viewpoint is flawed and wrong. What is for certain is it doesn't do any harm but it is not the case you have to be a gamer. You just need to understand the industry and that can be done via good communication skills and nothing more.

________________________________________________________SWTOR and COS games that could deliver !!

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uMMMM The comments people are making are funny a bit, do you people even have a clue the time needed for a DEV to make an MMo, I was a hardcore gamer, I went to school because I wanted to make games and such, after going to school getting a job and designing my own stuff, Devs do not have time much anymore to Play a game that often....

Do you people think it takes 5 seconds to make a game, making simple models textures and even game play mechanics take alot of time to do, and you need to make sure your on top of your field by practicing alot... So this topic is funny when you think devs have all the time in the world to play games, when we do not have the time we once had before, I game very little these days because of trying to get to know my field and learn new things daily...

So get in the field then come back , then you will agree and your comments will change, I was that way before I got in the field thinking what some of you have in the past, but I know better now.

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Originally posted by Darkcrystal

uMMMM The comments people are making are funny a bit, do you people even have a clue the time needed for a DEV to make an MMo, I was a hardcore gamer, I went to school because I wanted to make games and such, after going to school getting a job and designing my own stuff, Devs do not have time much anymore to Play a game that often....

Do you people think it takes 5 seconds to make a game, making simple models textures and even game play mechanics take alot of time to do, and you need to make sure your on top of your field by practicing alot... So this topic is funny when you think devs have all the time in the world to play games, when we do not have the time we once had before, I game very little these days because of trying to get to know my field and learn new things daily...

So get in the field then come back , then you will agree and your comments will change, I was that way before I got in the field thinking what some of you have in the past, but I know better now.

It''s disappointing to hear that you feel your situation is the norm in the industry. If it's any consolation, many devs find time to play games and many devs actually still enjoy playing games. Most studios have a 'gamer tag' list or a list of who's playing what games right now that you can sign up with. Some studios even have organized teams for different games. You'll find that a lot more devs are avid gamers than you think. If the studio that you work at doesn't have a game room, maybe it's time to set one up.

"So get in the field then come back , then you will agree and your comments will change,"

Been in the field for a decade now. Of all the devs I've spoken with and all the few studios I've been to (Origin, EA Tib, Turbine, CCP, NCSoft) not only has gaming been a common passion among the team members but there have been designated areas and established policies within the studios to support it.

"And wikipedia is as accurate as Britannica. Wikipedia is very reliable. You would be hard pressed to find a more reliable source for these kinds of things." -fivoroth

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Hmmm plenty of games have been made by "true" gamers... (love how true = what I think a gamer is..lol)

and they died.... even faster than the ones lead by non-gamers.

Wonder why that is? Whole article is a bit too much like gamers patting themselves on the back. I'll fix the entire article: good games are made by smart people.

Look at any game forums....do you REALLY think they'd make good gamers?

I dont think you realize which games were made by gamers and which were made by non-gaming suits calling the shots and who are after nothing but profit. Most of the older games, some of which are still succesful today, were designed and developed by gamers. The trend of games quickly dying started in more recent years because the development of those games is being completely controlled by the suits who saw there is more money to be made than they initially thought a decade or so ago.

A comparison:

Diablo 1 & 2, made by gamers - Diablo 3 made by suits

Vanilla WoW made by gamers - TBC made by a mix of gamers and suits - everything in WoW post TBC made by suits

In Diablo's case, most would argue that D1 & D2 were superior games in many ways to D3 (not graphically of course), and D3 lost themajority of its playerbase due to its design decisions driven by the suits / profit and now they are in the process of overhauling a lot of things in the game. A huge portion of D2 players played it for years, they didnt leave in droves shortly after launch like with D3.

WoW has achieved the success it has due to the work done in Vanill and TBC. Since then the direction and focus of the game has changed and with the last couple expansions WOTLK and Cata, MoP has yet to be seen) population started dropping shortly after the release of each.

In both cases, the original devs have since moved on to other companies & projects while less talented people have replaced them. Similar things have happened with other games and their sequels or expansions over the years.

Anyway. The whole gamers making games thing doesnt mean every gamer would make a good game. However only a gamer could actually make a truly good game. A gamer tends to create a game with an actual vision and consideration for what their target audience enjoys. They make decisions based on wether or not the game is enjoyable. A non-gamer / suit makes their decisions based on profit, or lack of it. They dont play their games and dont have the slightest clue what is bad about their games or what their playerbase actually desires.

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Hmmm plenty of games have been made by "true" gamers... (love how true = what I think a gamer is..lol)

and they died.... even faster than the ones lead by non-gamers.

Wonder why that is? Whole article is a bit too much like gamers patting themselves on the back. I'll fix the entire article: good games are made by smart people.

Look at any game forums....do you REALLY think they'd make good gamers?

I dont think you realize which games were made by gamers and which were made by non-gaming suits calling the shots and who are after nothing but profit. Most of the older games, some of which are still succesful today, were designed and developed by gamers. The trend of games quickly dying started in more recent years because the development of those games is being completely controlled by the suits who saw there is more money to be made than they initially thought a decade or so ago.

A comparison:

Diablo 1 & 2, made by gamers - Diablo 3 made by suits

Vanilla WoW made by gamers - TBC made by a mix of gamers and suits - everything in WoW post TBC made by suits

In Diablo's case, most would argue that D1 & D2 were superior games in many ways to D3 (not graphically of course), and D3 lost themajority of its playerbase due to its design decisions driven by the suits / profit and now they are in the process of overhauling a lot of things in the game. A huge portion of D2 players played it for years, they didnt leave in droves shortly after launch like with D3.

WoW has achieved the success it has due to the work done in Vanill and TBC. Since then the direction and focus of the game has changed and with the last couple expansions WOTLK and Cata, MoP has yet to be seen) population started dropping shortly after the release of each.

In both cases, the original devs have since moved on to other companies & projects while less talented people have replaced them. Similar things have happened with other games and their sequels or expansions over the years.

Anyway. The whole gamers making games thing doesnt mean every gamer would make a good game. However only a gamer could actually make a truly good game. A gamer tends to create a game with an actual vision and consideration for what their target audience enjoys. They make decisions based on wether or not the game is enjoyable. A non-gamer / suit makes their decisions based on profit, or lack of it. They dont play their games and dont have the slightest clue what is bad about their games or what their playerbase actually desires.

A rather interesting analysis of it. I'm inclined to agree, as with both WoW and the Diablo series it seems like the original vision either got lost in translation or simply changed drastically in the later incarnations.

"And wikipedia is as accurate as Britannica. Wikipedia is very reliable. You would be hard pressed to find a more reliable source for these kinds of things." -fivoroth

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I would say that people who don't play games should not be in the position to design games. I would say that people who don't play game could be in positions where being a gamer might not be needed.

Look at Curt Schilling. he was clearly a gamer. But not much of a businessman. Does it matter if you are a gamer if you can't keep the budget on track or bring in new investment?

If I find an amazing artist then it might not be important that they play games but that they are an amazing artist who can bring concepts to life?

What about someone who is an amazing animator? Maybe for movies. But they dont' play games? I think I'd rather take someone who wasn't a gamer but knew their craft well and could be utilized by those who are designing the game.

One of the things I've noted from my limited experiene at game conventions is that there are a lot of people working at game companies who are very unprofessional. I sometimes wonder if some of the issues that seem to plague game companies are that they are run/staffed by gamers and not professionals.

Of course, if you are designing a game then being a gamer and one that understands the game/demographic you are working for would be incredibly important.

The problem with, let's say the artist, is that you end up with things like "space pope" in SWTOR. An outfit that looks hilarious (and kind of bad) on male characters, and even silly for female characters (who it seemed designed for because all healers are female, right? *rolls eyes). There were some cool outfits, I'll admit, but most of the artists seemed like they didn't have a firm grasp of what something (like a healing sage) would want to look like. Anyone familiar with the MMO market KNOWS that people want to look bada$$... even if they are HEALING. They don't want to look like they are in a white ball gown, going into a raid with others, to serve tea and crumpets to those on the battlefield.

Perhaps a little research would reveal that people want to look and feel good about their characters, or perhaps just knowing MMOs would have sufficed and saved the trouble. I know a lot of talented artists that play games. Not avidly, but enough to understand. End of story.

I can agree that not all execs need to be gamers, unless they are the execs that are, ultimately, calling the shots. Either they need to surround themselves with advisors that know and REALLY understand the game industry (and don't just read charts from gaming trends that are 2 years old), or they need to take the time to understand it themselves.

On that note, I thought of my new topic. Thanks!

Executives looking at 2yr old gaming trends are just plain being bad execs. I think there is more of a middle ground that we'e not looking at which is that someone can still be a productive, successful, contributing member of a gaming company without having the 1000+ MMO hours required to delve into (in many cases) just one game.

Understanding the gaming industry and being a Gamer, I would say, are two completely different things. A lot of the gamers who might post on here probably happen to be both, but the vast majority of gamers probably don't know a thing or care what's going on.

Will being a Gamer give you advantageous insight? Of course, but that applies to working in any capacity where your profession is also your passion.

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The problem really begins when 'suits' begin to run companies and simply look at positions to fill in the company - they lose touch with what made them successful - their games. How do you make good games? You can't tell a good one from a bad one.

Good companies (Blizz/Anet) are run by people that game for breakfast, lunch and dinner (and midnight snack).